Connect with us

Movies News

15 Best Shakespeare Film Adaptations, Ranked From Branagh to Olivier

Published

on

15 Best Shakespeare Film Adaptations, Ranked From Branagh to Olivier

The works of William Shakespeare have been adapted for the screen since cinema’s earliest days, even before people could even speak on screen. The first Shakespearean sound feature was The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and nearly a century later, filmmakers continue to use the Bard’s plays for countless reinterpretations. His works will continue to be adapted, reimagined, and dissected on screens big and small as long as movies continue to be made. Because they are in the public domain, anyone has the ability to grab ahold of these beloved plays and make something with them. 2021 saw the latest high-profile release of a Shakespeare adaptation with Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.

Hundreds of films have been made out of Shakespeare’s plays, and with this list, we will look at fifteen films that turned them into something special on the big screen. Some ground rules for this list. The films must utilize Shakespeare’s dialogue, as the gorgeous poetry and prose are crucial to his legacy. That means no West Side Story, no Ran, no The Lion King, or any other film that just takes inspiration and does its own thing. Also, the UK has a long history of adapting these plays into television films and filming stage productions from the likes of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre. These are also ineligible for this list, even if many are excellent (the RSC’s production of The Tempest, starring Simon Russell Beale, is a recent favorite). The fifteen films here are theatrical, textual adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays.

Advertisement

RELATED: 10 Best Movies You Didn’t Realize Are Based on Shakespeare Plays

15. Richard III (1995)

Sometimes all you want out of a Shakespeare adaptation is for a great actor to sink their teeth into one of the most iconic characters in the history of drama. Richard III from director Richard Loncraine delivers just that, with Ian McKellen taking on the title role. As the archetypal direct address villain, McKellen brings so much joy to Richard’s cunning and wickedness. Every syllable that he utters feels drenched in delicious slime.

Based on a stage production directed by Richard Eyre, the film takes the events of the play out of its fifteenth-century setting and into a fictionalized 1930s England that mirrors the Nazi party of the era, with Richard as the Hitler stand-in. The metaphor is certainly clunky and on-the-nose, but McKellen makes it all worthwhile, alongside the top notch cast that includes Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, and Kristin Scott Thomas. It may not be the most challenging adaptation of Richard III you can get, but it is a rollicking good time.

Advertisement

14. Coriolanus (2011)

For as often as Shakespeare’s plays are performed, there are really only about a dozen classics that get done on a consistent basis. Coriolanus rarely finds its way to the stage. So, when Ralph Fiennes decided to make his feature directorial debut, it came as a bit of a surprise he chose Coriolanus, a play never been adapted for the big screen before. Fiennes stars as the titular character, a Roman general elected to office with open contempt for the public. He and screenwriter John Logan transplant the play to the modern-day, shooting in Belgrade in place of Rome.

Where the political metaphor in Loncraine’s Richard III feels blunt and obvious, Coriolanus makes all the dots connect to today’s view of politicians, the media, and war. As is the case with so many Shakespeare adaptations, Fiennes recruits a cast of heavy hitters with Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jessica Chastain. Even Gerard Butler proves himself very worthy of the material as Coriolanus’ chief adversary. Coriolanus went criminally underseen upon release, not even cracking $1 million at the domestic box office, but it is a gem waiting to be uncovered.


13. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

In the 1930s, Warner Bros. was not known for grand prestige pictures. Warner Bros. trafficked in down and dirty gangster films like The Public Enemy and Little Caesar and musicals, often directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Taking on Shakespeare’s classic fantastical comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream was far from what was made at that studio, but they decided to pump in a good chunk of change into bringing to the screen the vision of Austrian director Max Reinhardt, who directed a production of the play at the Hollywood Bowl.

Advertisement

Collaborating with William Dieterle, the result is a film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that delivers the beautiful opulence only classic Hollywood could afford. Lavish sets, mind blowing optical special effects, and an orchestra beautifully playing Felix Mendelssohn‘s beloved score for the play. The cast of Warner Bros. players, including James Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Dick Powell, and Olivia de Havilland, are more of a mixed bag, but they are there to serve the gorgeous production, which still astounds 87 years later.


12. Henry V (1944)

The directorial debut from Laurence Olivier has a fairly unusual origin. Obviously, Olivier was (and, for many, still is) the king of Shakespeare, becoming a figurehead for the pinnacle of British theatre. For his first film, Winston Churchill called upon Olivier to create a film to glorify British triumph to boost morale during World War II, and the result is his rousing adaptation of Henry V. Olivier, who also stars as the titular king, blends theatricality and cinema together in a very unique way, setting the first half-hour inside the Globe Theatre as a performance. Then, it expands out to highly stylized soundstage sets and eventually onto outdoor locations for a full battle sequence.

All of this is photographed in glorious Technicolor, creating vivid images we can only long for today. In terms of performance, Henry V does fall into a bit of stuffiness that turns off so many people from engaging with Shakespeare in the first place, but Olivier makes it hard to take your eyes off him. Henry V is a very successful film, both artistically and as wartime propaganda.


11. Julius Caesar (1953)

Many of us encounter Shakespeare for the first time in school, whether it be an English or drama class, and so much rests on that first teacher to either make you fall in love with the Bard or actively resist him for the rest of your life. Many people start with A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Macbeth, but my Freshman English teacher gave us Julius Caesar. Needless to say, it worked, hence you reading this list. A big reason it snapped into place was seeing the film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Advertisement

In a lot of ways, reading the works of Shakespeare in class does not do a ton of good, because the medium in which they are meant to be seen is in performance. Watching actors like Marlon Brando, James Mason, and John Gielgud perform this material with strong intention and clarity, inside this large Mankiewicz production, opened my fourteen-year-old eyes to something wonderful. The language became less daunting and transformed into beauty. The film isn’t terribly audacious or inventive, but it accomplishes exactly what it intends to do in creating a totally compelling, straightforward telling of Julius Caesar.


10. Hamlet (1948)

One would think that tackling hallowed material like Shakespeare would be an easy route to Oscar gold, but Olivier’s Hamlet remains the only Shakespeare adaptation to win Best Picture. His Hamlet stands in complete contrast with his Henry V. Ashewing vivid Technicolor for stark black and white, Olivier makes the existential tale of the Danish prince seeking revenge for his father’s murder a moody, hazy piece, stripping away so much of the story’s politics. He dives headfirst into the play’s Oedipal readings – a popular interpretation for performance ever since – even casting Eileen Herlie as Gertrude despite her being eleven years Olivier’s junior.

The production is far more minimal and perfectly matches the subdued, melancholy feeling pervading the entire picture. Olivier’s Hamlet puts psychology at the forefront, and the result is enchanting. A worthy representative as the sole Shakespearean Best Picture winner.


9. King Lear (1971)

Taking a page from Olivier’s Hamlet in capturing that moody black and white comes a difficult-to-track-down film. Peter Brook’s King Lear is possibly the bleakest film adaptation of a Shakespeare’s play. Like Loncraine’s Richard III, the main attraction for this King Lear is to see Paul Scofield take on one of Shakespeare’s most challenging characters. Like the lead role, the film is cold and harsh, shot in snow-covered Denmark, making you feel the need to bundle up in a blanket. Scofield’s Lear manages the perfect balance of monstrosity and empathy without feeling like two different characters, and he never falls into the trap of trying to do too much. The film is in dire need of a proper restoration, as it is really only available in a compromised form on YouTube, and it truly deserves it.

Advertisement


8. Hamlet (1996)

Any list of the greatest Shakespeare films requires Kenneth Branagh, who single-handedly revived a populist interest in Shakespeare at the end of the 20th Century. His biggest swing, and one of the biggest swings of any kind in the last 30 years, is his Hamlet. Every movie adapted from Shakespeare has to make decisions on what to cut and change to acclimate to the form. Branagh chooses to not cut a single word from Hamlet and shoots the four-hour epic in 70mm. Is it bloated? Yes. Are some of the big-name cameos in small parts distracting? Yes. Does it matter? Not really. The ambition on display is entrancing. Tackling the entire play allows all of the frequently cut political machinations to give entirely new dimensions to a story that alters the personal stakes we are so accustomed to. The chances of a film being made like this ever again are sadly slim to none. Cherish it.


7. Twelfth Night (1996)

1996 was a big year for Shakespeare. Not only did we get Branagh’s Hamlet, but we also got a film many of you will be extremely mad is not on this list: Baz Luhrmann’s MTV inspired William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, a shrill exercise in bludgeoning an audience. Quietly, the best of the three is the one not trying to overwhelm you with its scale or style, that being Twelfth Night from acclaimed stage director (Les Misêrables, Cats) and former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Trevor Nunn. This incredibly romantic, lushly photographed, and quite funny film about gender performance stars Imogen Stubbs as Viola, masquerading as a man under the service of Duke Orsino of Illyria (Toby Stephens) and caught in a romantic entanglement between her Duke and the object of his one-sided affections, Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter).

Populated with tremendous British character actors like Ben Kingsley, Imelda Staunton, Richard E. Grant, and Nigel Hawthorne, this take on Twelfth Night gets at so many of the play’s underlying themes about gender and sexuality without ever putting a fine point on any of it. It’s a smart, gorgeous rendering of one of Shakespeare’s most enjoyable plays and should not play second fiddle to those other two simultaneous releases in the slightest.

Advertisement

6. Titus (1999)

Some of Shakespeare’s earliest plays are a bit all over the place and don’t cohere into the most satisfying pieces, even with the still present poetry. Julie Taymor hit the ground running with her directorial debut of an early Shakespeare work, Titus (drop the Andronicus; it’s cleaner). Taymor is an artist who only knows how to take bold swings, and with Titus, she throws a lot at you, conceptualizing the play in a place free from time. Traditional Roman garb comfortably coexists with motorcycles. Elliot Goldenthal’s score incorporates genres from classical to electronic to alt-rock for a singular soundscape.

Anthony Hopkins delivers one of his finest performances in the title role with another cast of all-stars, featuring Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Harry Lennix, and Colm Feore. It’s bold, bloody, and beautiful. For some strange reason, it’s exceptionally difficult to get ahold of. Taymor has yet to match Titus in her career, including another Shakespeare adaptation with The Tempest, but one day she will strike gold again with the chances she takes.

5. Henry V (1989)​

Eagle-eyed readers may recall that on the list of Kenneth Branagh’s best films Hamlet landed at a higher spot than his directorial debut Henry V, but the difference comes from what kind of list they appear on. As a Branagh accomplishment, Hamlet is the more impressive feat. As a translation of Shakespeare’s text to screen, Branagh’s Henry V perfectly realizes that task. It is grand and sweeping when it needs to be and can turn quiet and personal just as easily. Patrick Doyle’s score swells inside you. Derek Jacobi as the Chorus remains one of the greatest examples of an on-screen narrator in film history. This film is entirely responsible for the renaissance of Shakespeare on film for the following ten-plus years, and 33 years later, it packs an enormous punch.

Advertisement


4. Macbeth (1971)

Unfortunately, one of the great Shakespeare films was directed by Roman Polanski. He took on Macbeth just after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate, and the grisliness of life and callousness of violence paints every single frame. It shares the bleakness of Brook’s King Lear, coincidentally released the same year, in worldview but not in execution.

Macbeth is a vibrant, exciting work about death, despair, and madness. Unlike all of these other films, it does not feature a cast filled with marquee names, but the players, led by Jon Finch and Francesca Annis, delve deep and deliver uncompromising, electric performances of pretty difficult people. The Polanski factor will certainly turn away some viewers, but if you do give this a shot, you will experience a Macbeth film so enthralling that any new adaptation will struggle to match it, such as Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.


3. Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Kenneth Branagh has directed five Shakespeare adaptations, and the one that stands above them all is Much Ado About Nothing. Trevor Nunn’s Twelfth Night feels like it used this film as a blueprint and could really only achieve 80-85% of the exquisite beauty and charm Branagh’s romantic comedy can give. He and then-wife Emma Thompson sparkle as Benedick and Beatrice, respectively. Their verbal sparring stands comfortably alongside the likes of the greats of the screwball comedy era of classic Hollywood. The photography of sun-dappled Tuscany is a feast for the eyes, as well as the beautiful, charming cast of Denzel Washington, Kate Beckinsale, Robert Sean Leonard, and Keanu Reeves. Throw in wild card Michael Keaton as Dogberry, who is going full Beetlejuice here, and you have a grand time at the movies.


Advertisement

2. Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Every film listed thus far has been a straight adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s plays. Chimes at Midnight, directed by Orson Welles, takes Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, along with pieces of Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and filters them all through the character of Sir John Falstaff. Welles is another name that cannot be absent from a Shakespeare films list, and Chimes at Midnight stands as his finest. His tale of Falstaff, whom Welles also plays, and Prince Hal (Keith Baxter) is a beautiful tale of friendship, betrayal, and duty, turning plays that could be seen as overly plotty into a stunning character drama for what was a supporting character.

Infrequent funding and shooting forced Welles to pretty dramatically reinvent how he directed films, and Chimes at Midnight’s frenetic, immediate style feels extremely contemporary. The film feels alive, and Welles perhaps never gave a better performance on screen than he does as Falstaff. While Citizen Kane is a tough bar to clear, Chimes at Midnight comes awfully close.


1. Romeo and Juliet (1968)

For many, Romeo and Juliet was people’s school introduction to Shakespeare, a tough setting for someone to fall in love with Shakespeare unless perfectly timed (like me with Julius Caesar). Many have their guard up and resist what they were shown in school. Franco Zeffirelli’s (a person undeniably linked with Shakespeare on film and a very problematic figure) adaptation of Shakespeare’s beloved romance has the air of homework to it. However, Romeo and Juliet could not be further from that connotation. It stands as the pinnacle of how to bring Shakespeare to the screen.

Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey perfectly capture naive young love and more than capably handle the devastating tragedy of the story, an impressive feat for two teenagers. Hussey, in particular, becomes a movie star before your eyes, much in the same way Rachel Zegler does in the Juliet analog role of María in the recent West Side Story. Michael York and John McEnery, as Tybalt and Mercutio, respectively, arrive as thrilling foils for the central romance. Even more than Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet make tremendous use of the primarily Tuscan shooting locations, which Tuscany native Zeffirelli can maximize. Romeo and Juliet truly is everything one would want and more from a Shakespearean film adaptation. There’s a reason it is the film every English teacher shows their students. It’s the best.

Advertisement


Movies News

Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Published

on

By

Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

Advertisement

The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

Advertisement

Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Movies News

Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

Published

on

By

According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

Advertisement

To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

Continue Reading

Movies News

Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

Published

on

By

Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

Advertisement

Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

Continue Reading

Trending